Last year, at this time, I was babysitting the two little girls I au paired for on the days leading up to Christmas Eve, when we all piled into the car and headed down to the French Alps. This year is quite different; I was still in Paris up until Christmas Eve, but because I had to work at both of my two jobs before hopping the first train out of Paris to Marseille to spend Christmas with my boyfriend and his family. I’ve been so lucky in the two Christmases I’ve been here to be welcomed so generously by two wonderful families, even if it could never be a replacement for spending Christmas with my own.
Since I had some free time during the day earlier in the week, I went for a wander around the city with my camera to take some Christmasy photos. Some of these are from that day, some are from earlier in the month (as you may notice if you follow me on Instagram, hint hint), but here’s a little glimpse of what it looks like during Christmas in Paris, at the Rue Royale and the Christmas markets of the Champs-Elysees and Eiffel Tower.
Side note about the flowers: I found them just sitting in that bicycle basket and stopped to snap a few photos as the bike was purple instead of black, an interesting change. A man standing near the bike came over and told me that a local florist had passed by earlier that morning and gave him the bouquet as it was surplus, so he’d just put it in the basket to look pretty and I was welcome to it if I liked. At first I said, “no, I’ll leave it there in case someone else wants to take a picture of it”, but rethought and returned, asking him shyly, “I can really have it?” He smiled and repeated his earlier story, offering it again. So now the ‘surplus’ bouquet is happily decorating my coffee table at home.
Happy Holidays and best wishes to you and yours!
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